Nearby, in the hospital’s emergency room, veterinarians Johanna Wolf and Susanna Solbak cleaned and wrapped the seared legs of a black cat as he howled in protest.

Around the corner, Dr. Steven Epstein checked on a mottled gray kitty that suffered heat and smoke injuries to her throat and esophagus, requiring vets to insert a feeding tube to nourish her.

These are some of the lesser-known victims of the wildfires that have consumed wide swaths of Northern California in recent weeks. Beyond the human toll and massive property losses, dozens of animals were left homeless and injured, wandering amid the soot and ash in Calaveras and Lake counties before being rescued. UC Davis has stepped in to treat some of the most critically injured.

As of Friday, the teaching hospital had received more than 40 cats, along with four horses, two pigs, two chickens, a dog and a goat. Nearly half of the animals have gone unclaimed, their families likely unaware whether they survived or where to look for them. Others have been identified through microchips under their skin, or after their owners spotted their photos on the UC Davis Facebook page.

UC Davis responded to their plight about two weeks ago, when the Butte and Valley fires first erupted. The ensuing conflagrations killed six people, flattened more than 1,500 homes and blackened 150,000 acres. Members of the hospital’s Veterinary Emergency Response Team, who are dispatched to animal crises across the region and beyond, traveled to Middletown and Angel’s Camp, where firefighters and residents were picking up burned and injured animals. Initially working in the dark, without electricity, they helped assess and treat the victims, and transported the most seriously injured to UC Davis.

Smaller veterinary hospitals are generally unequipped to treat critical burns, which require costly and intensive care, said Dr. John Madigan, a large-animal specialist and founder of the emergency team.

In 2006, the team treated a herd of sheep burned in a Yolo County fire. Members have rescued stranded livestock from floods and fires. But rarely has the hospital been called to treat such a large influx of patients with such serious injuries, Madigan said. Veterinarians, technicians and volunteers have been working virtually around the clock to treat victims of the Butte and Valley blazes.

“We don’t see significant burn injuries very often,” said Dr. Erik Wisner, a veterinary radiology specialist at UC Davis. “They require a great deal of treatment, support and nursing care. Everyone rises to the occasion when these kinds of things happen.”

UC Davis is providing the care without charge to owners, and asking for donations from the public to help defray expenses. Animals that recover and are unclaimed by their families will be placed for adoption by shelters in their home counties. In a few cases, firefighters who rescued cats from the charred rubble and brush have requested permission to adopt them if the owners cannot be found.

The vast majority of severely injured pets are cats. The vets speculate that could be because residents were given only a few minutes to leave their homes. Dogs, by nature, would be easier to corral out of the house, while cats may have gone into hiding or fled the chaos.

Most of the cats are expected to survive, Epstein said. But many will require weeks of treatment.

The UC Davis medical center is among the busiest veterinary hospitals in the country, treating an estimated 50,000 animals each year. When the recent fires exploded, its small animal clinic was running at 85 percent capacity, said communications officer Rob Warren. With wildfire victims still coming in, “we are pretty much at capacity,” he said.

To accommodate the animals, staffers searched for lesser-used rooms and other spaces that could be converted into burn treatment centers. “Interim burn unit,” read a handwritten sign on the door of a room that previously served as a radiology waiting area. “Only burn patients allowed in this room until further notice.”